


I hope I become a ghost

by orphan_account



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Anxiety, Death, Gen, Ghost Hunters, Haunting, mostly fun tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:45:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19178281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Behind him, Ryan has stopped, dead on his feet. Shane turns around, ready to annoy him into moving again but whatever he wants to say dies in his throat when he sees the look Ryan is wearing. Wide-eyed and pale, his mouth opening and closing in shaky uncertainty."Can you smell that?" Ryan whispers, a little dramatic, but Shane gives in and sniffs the air."Yikes." He says. "Yeah, smells like-""Rotten meat." Ryan says, voice wobbly. He looks terrified, glassy eyes glancing off to his right and - oh. Room 220. Fuck.





	I hope I become a ghost

“Oh, hell  _ yeah _ .” Next to him Ryan shoots upright in his seat, arms half-raised in the air. Shane turns his head, not bothering to remove his headphones until he’s sure he’s interested in the news. Ryan’s smiling at him now, a wide, shit-eating grin full of satisfaction and excitement. Shane caves a little. Alright, fine.

“Are you gonna make me ask?” He says, pushing the side of headphones off of his left ear. Ryan justs twists his computer to screen so Shane can lean forwards to see it - but he barely registers that it’s an email he’s looking at, and doesn’t at all realize what it’s actually about before Ryan runs out of patience, as he usually does. “Hotel Monte Vista.” He says, like it’s supposed to mean anything to Shane. Shane skims the mail telling Ryan that his  _ peculiar  _ booking has gone through and that cameras are just fine - that they’re not the first people interested in the  _ paranormal history _ of the Hotel.

“We managed to buy out a floor.” Ryan says and Shane can almost feel the nervous excitement radiate off of him. He’s not ashamed to admit that he’s looking a little forward to the moment it turns into cold, unbridled fear. It’s always an experience. Ryan continues: “And they’re never that busy this time of year.” 

Shane finishes reading the mail and leans back in his seat, nodding. He’s a little excited, too - hotels are always fun. There’s something classy about ghost hunting in golden-lit hallways with plush maroon carpets and it’s nice that they get to sleep in decent beds for once. The fact that they’re full of employers getting paid to - and very likely, getting off on - telling people lies is something he has to carry with his conscience but he’ll manage. He points towards the screen and pulls his headphones all the way off.

“I remember. It’s on a list or something, right?” 

Ryan leans back, too. His hands are folded over his stomach and he looks so goddamn satisfied it’s almost annoying. “The second-most haunted building in the US, baby.” That makes Shane frown.

“The  _ second _ most?” Ryan nods. “But we’ve already been in the most haunted. Pennhurst Asylum right?” At this, Ryan waves a hand, dismissively. His confidence is definitely annoying.

“That’s not important. What matters is that we’re upping our stay to three nights.” He sounds so conspiratorial as he says it that Shane wonders if Ryan has forgotten what their job is. He laughs, head thrown back, and turns towards his own screen.

“That’s - that’s cool, little guy. We’ll see how long you last.” 

Ryan flips him off but Shane pretends not to notice.

-

Ryan really has done his research on this place, but Shane’s usual impressed - however disgruntled - validation crumples as soon as he goes on the hotel’s website.

“They have section called  _ ghost stories. _ ” He says, with so much indignation that Sara squirms up from her horizontal position to lean in front of him. Shane gets a faceful of curls as Sara reads what’s on the screen. She laughs, a loud, high-pitched ‘ _ hah!’  _ before plopping down to rest her head against his thigh again. 

“Corporate fat cats. That’s fucking funny.” Sara says and Shane grumbles a little.

“It’s commercial, that’s what it is.” He screenshots the website and sends the pic to Ryan, with some added outraged commentary that definitely is way more riled up than it should be, because Ryan needs opposition sometimes. Sara follows what he’s doing with one open eye. She tuts.

“Poor Bergara.”

“He deserves everything that’s coming to him.” Sara bats at his knee, laughing, and shakes her head. 

“I mean the hotel. Three nights? Your boy’s gonna break.”

Shane shrugs. “I’ll be sure to catch it on camera.”

-

They fly over to Florida the next saturday, on the cheapest, most awkwardly timed flight they can find. Ryan has so much damn equipment with and it fucks them up when they get to the metal detector. Shane pushes Ryan aside - softly, he’s not an animal - so he can go through first. The scene is hilarious the first five minutes, full of confused airport attendants and an exasperated Ryan explaining what each thing does to avoid having a bomb squad called on them but then it draws out a bit. Ryan starts filming after then, which Shane knows is a good idea, to have clips from the travelling as well, but it’s midnight and they’re both tired and he doubts it’ll make for entertaining footage. He’s almost looking forward to the plane, if it means getting to sleep for at least a few hours.

They catch a bus from the airport to the hotel, because even if they’re just them and TJ this time, they can’t be bothered to fit all their - Ryan’s - ghost hunting shit into a cab. Shane can see Ryan filming some more, slow panning and shots out of the darkened windows so he doesn’t say anything - those kind of clips are usually for ambient music and voice overs. He knows Ryan’s visions by now. By the time they get to the hotel, they’re both decked out with microphones - they’ll wait with the body cams ‘till the morning. But TJ’s ready with his camera and his headphones and they talk about the first few shots while Shane looks at the hotel across the street: it doesn’t look like much. Relatively flat in copper red brick, with orange and red neon lightning up the side. Above it too, in blocky letters, “Hotel Monte Vista” lights up a sky that’s slowly getting lighter along the eastern horizon. 

TJ starts filming as they cross the street.

“So this is it.” Ryan says, gesturing with the arm that isn’t dragging his suitcase behind him. “The second most haunted building in the US - Hotel Monte  _ Vista _ . ” They stop on the corner sidewalk in front of the hotel and Shane hopes the shot looks as good as it does in his mind - with the red neon light spilling down over them where they’re standing, looking up. He hums a little, non-committedly and Ryan laughs.

“You don’t sound impressed?” 

Shane shrugs before he remembers that that probably doesn’t translate well through the dim light, to the camera on the other side of the street, so he makes another sound, 

“ _ Eh _ \- anything that profits off of like - grisly murders happening in their hotel rooms is shady as hell, dude. It’s, uh…”

“Horse shit?”

“Well, that’s - that’s just crass, Ryan.”

“Just open the damn door.”

The interior of the hotel is a little less extravagant than Shane always hopes. The ceilings aren’t particularly high and the smatterings of furniture are almost homely - but around the edge of the carpet in the foyer he can see dark, shiny hardwood floors and the reception desk is so polished he can see the light above it reflect itself. The lady behind it snaps her head up - quickly blinking eyes that aren’t bloodshot but Shane suspects foul play with copious amounts of caffeine. They check in while TJ messes around behind them, maneuvering the camera from side to side. They get their keys (the lady looks at the room numbers they’ve ordered and then at Ryan who just smiles, pleasantly. Shane doesn’t want to know) and find a place to set up shop for a while to do the official intro. Ryan does he dramatic bit, Shane shakes his head, TJ gives them a thumbs up.

It’s five am when they’re heading to their rooms, TJ on the second floor and Ryan and Shane on the third - the one they’ve bought out. Pausing outside of the rooms, Shane turns around to face the other side of the hallway.

“What did you do?” He asks. Ryan laughs, twirling the key around a finger. He’s a bad liar. “She gave you a look, Ryan, capital L. And A. A Look, Bergara.” Ryan rubs the back of his neck, ruffles the shorts strands of hair there.He points at their respective doors. 

“Room 305 and 306.” He says. “Reportedly the most active rooms in the hotel. One of them was on Unsolved Mysteries” Shane sighs at how unabashedly impressed Ryan sounds at that, pinches the bridge of his nose which Ryan ignores. “But I don’t wanna tell you what happened in any of them, because I want you to see for yourself.”

“See  _ what,  _ Ryan.”

“Yeah! Goodnight!” There’s laughter in Ryan’s voice when he closes the door which is so fucking  _ weird _ \- because they’re both exhausted and Ryan was terrified in the Pennhurst Asylum and now he’s sleeping alone in a room that’s supposedly super duper haunted and his confidence is freaking Shane out. 

He’s yawning so hard his jaw aches when he lock himself in his room and immediately closes the drapes. He sets up a camera and mumbles soft, half-hearted reviews of how the room looks, how the bed feels (soft, good bounce, fresh linens, bit on the short side) He shakes Ryan’s innate, psychological, constant weirdness off of him and gets ready to sleep, so grateful for the bed that he could cry.

But of course it gets weirder.

Because Shane can’t fucking sleep.

He feels uncomfortable - like he’s forgotten to do something important, like there’s something missing that he can’t see. He stares into the darkness and turns over every other minute, convinces himself (quite easily) that it’s because of the camera. When Ryan’s next to him, he can go to sleep just fine, knowing that Ryan’s insane ramblings will do for entertainment, but when he’s alone it feels weird. He feels watched. He feels  _ watched _ .

It’s ten am when someone knocks on his door and he gets out of bed, bleary-eyed and pissed off. It’s obvious though, that Ryan, pushing his way past Shane into the room, hasn’t slept either.

“I have to show you something.” Ryan says and Shane laughs and then stops when Ryan doesn’t even smile back. He’s sitting on Shane’s bed, phone in head, and Shane cautiously joins him.

“You alright, man?” He asks. Ryan doesn’t answer, just unlocks his phone and turns it towards Shane, a video already on the screen. He presses play and Shane watches a rocking chair in a dark room, lit only by the white flash of a phone. It’s moving, rocking back and forth, slowly and without sound. “Right,” he says, “you showed me those videos on the way over here. Unsolved Mysteries - “ Ryan is shaking his head.

“ _ I  _ shot this.” And yeah. There’s the sound of Ryan behind the camera, his too-awake-for-six-AM voice, his shaky breathing. Shane nods. He’s not convinced, but -

“You should include that. It’s good footage. Creepy.”

Ryan looks incredulous and a little offended. “That’s it.” He says. “That’s all you got?”

Shane shrugs, helplessly. “What do you want me to say, man. It’s literally a hotel that profits off of people being scared. Stuff like that - “ he gestures to the phone “ - isn’t indisputable to me. It’s like that scene in the new Ghostbusters.”

Ryan looks exhausted. His eyelids move move slowly, heavily. “Like the new - the new ghostbusters.” Shane nods. With a groan, Ryan falls back on the bed and covers his face with a hand. Shane can hear him mumble broken pieces of sentences -  _ fucking ghostbusters  _ \- and claps a hand down on Ryan’s knee.

“When are we interviewing the bar maiden?” He asks.

“Okay. That’s a weird thing to call a person but - at twelve.” Shane gets up and stretches. He feels decidedly unrested yet full of annoyed, pent-up energy. Coffee would be good right now. Some hearty breakfast food, too.

“I’m gonna shower. You have a nap.” He says, and leaves Ryan on the bed, defeated.

The thing is - Shane gets scared. He’s not a psychopath. Horror movies and ambiguous shadows and dark alleyways and, yes, haunted asylums with long, musty concrete tunnels make him uncomfortable. But Ryan makes it so easy to be the brave one. At one point, Sara pointed out to him that when she’s with friends who are more anxious than she is, it’s easy for her to talk to other people, to ask for directions or an extra serving of ketchup - because her friend can’t, so she has to. When Shane’s on site with Ryan, he sees how honestly stupid that kind of fear is and he has no other choice to raise himself above it. 

So whatever trepidation he felt during the night - it evaporates as soon as he sees Ryan, shaken up and over-reacting about a damn rocking chair.

It’s eleven forty-five and they’re setting up shop at the bar. Ryan carries a copy of the full script around with him, to make sure that what they say now will fit with what they’ll say in the sound booth. It’s a little ridiculous and a lot put-upon  _ swanky _ , but Ryan needs the show to go after his head, which Shane can respect.

“Okay.” Ryan says to the bartender. “We’ll go over the questions I sent you and it’ll come out like more of a - a sort of dialogue. Don’t sweat it if you like, mess up, you can’t really say anything that’s going to offend us.”

“We’re liberal like that.” Shane says, getting comfortable on the bar stool, his knees pressing against the flat wood. The bartender laughs, nodding her head - not very old, early twenties at most, she’s decked out in a half-formal white dress shirt and a dish towel over one shoulder, even though the bar doesn’t open for another four hours. 

“Cool.” She says. “I’ll do my best.”

They have two cameras set up. One to the right of Ryan’s shoulder and one across from it, on the other side of the bar, both of them at an angle so they have two points of view without the cameras intercepting each other.. TJ is sitting a couple of seats down with his headphones. 

Ryan introduces the bartender - Mia - and she smiles, fighting the instinct tha tis to look at the camera trained on her face. It’s a valuable effort. 

“So how long have you worked here?” Ryan asks. 

“Just under a year.” She says. “But I’ve been sorta in and out of the hotel for my entire life.” Shane arches his eyebrows. He can imagine cooler places for a kid to go, growing up in Arizona, but he doesn’t say so. Especially not when she says that her grandfather used to work there, and would bring her with him.

“And are you aware the hotel’s reputation?” Shane rolls her eyes and Mia laughs again.

“Oh, yeah.” She says, in a secretive way that has both of them intrigued. She looks like she enjoys the suspense. “My grandpa” - she says  _ grampa _ , with an M - “has worked here since the late sixties. I have, uh - “ she jabs a thumb over her shoulder. “Ugh, I should’ve gotten them before - there’s like a pin-up board in the bar’s kitchen with previous workers and stuff, I could - I could go get some photos?” Both of them nod insistently and she half-jogs to the other end of the bar and through a door in the wall. Shane has taken out his phone when she comes back, wanting to record the two photos she puts on the bar in front of them. “This one is him back then.” She points at an older photo of a grown man in a white shirt and black vest. The quality is subpar in that lovely, nostalgic way that modern polaroid replicate.

“Bowtie and everything.” Shane mutters.

Mia nods. “The, uh - the accepted  _ attire  _ was a little more formal back then. Nowadays people kinda like it when bartenders are dressed down.” She points at the other photo, significantly newer. “That’s him and me, out in the kitchen. My parents worked out of town when I was a kid, so he brought me around here a lot. I’d be out back, obviously, not out here. But, uh - once, when I was about five, he was taking out the trash.” Her voice changes to something Shane recognizes as  _ anecdotal,  _ so he puts his phone away. “And I was alone and it was like - a while past midnight and there was no one in the bar. But then I heard someone come down. I heard a voice, a sorta gruff, man’s voice say  _ good morning, anybody here?  _ And then the same thing, in the exact same way. Like a broken record,  _ good morning, anybody here _ , twice. And I went out here to look and there was no one.”

Shane is thinking along the paths of editing already. Some kind of low, ambient music, stopping abruptly after Mia’s said that last thing. A cut from her face to theirs. He remembers to school his facial expression into something that doesn’t look like violent dissociation. Mia goes on. 

“And it scared the shit out of me, obviously, ‘cus I was a kid and I liked ghost stories and stuff, and so I ran back to the kitchen where my grandpa was coming back in and freaked out all over him, but he just looked - so calm. Like resigned almost. And he sat me on the counter next to the sink when he was washing up and went ‘You’ve just met Louie’.”

“The Bank Robber.” Ryan says, almost reverently. “So your grandfather was there in 1970?” 

Shane scoffs. “Let the woman tell her story, Ryan.” He says, but Mia just smiles, seemingly pleased at people recognizing the anecdote. She nods.

“Yeah. Our website says there were three men but grandpa only served two. He didn’t know they’d robbed a bank, but he assumed they were criminals - he said something about seeing gun holsters under their jackets. It was like four in the morning, and grandpa was closing when he heard someone call from the bar.”

“‘Good morning, anybody here?’” Ryan says. Mia nods, smiling.

“One of them was bleeding all over the place and almost had to dragged up the bar. Grandpa was  _ terrified _ .”

“I would’ve been.” Shane says.

“The two guys ordered rum and coke. One of them - the one called Louie - kept coughing up blood and wiping it off with a handkerchief and like - actually apologizing to my grandpa. He’d been hurt pretty bad.”

“Didn’t he call the police?” 

“He offered to call an ambulance because the dude was literally dying. But Louie just waved a hand and went ‘They’ll be here eventually’ and he didn’t really dare say anything to it. When he’d finished his drink the other guy stood up and paid my grandpa with this huge wad of cash. He asked him to keep Louie company and not to snitch. Then he kissed Louie’s forehead and went out the front door. And my grandpa  _ immediately  _ called an ambulance after that, just saying that there was a dying man in his bar. But then he just sat with Louie - talking about football and girls and Nixon. And then Louie died, bleeding out, right where your sound guy’s sitting actually.

“Holy shit, TJ. That’s so cool.”

“Shut up, Shane. And have you - have you heard him since? Louie?”

Mia nods, pulls the dish towel off her shoulder. She twists it in her hands. “Every August from when I was five till I was twelve. And my grandpa’s heard it every August from 1975. I’m uh - kind of excited to see if he’ll come back to me this year. Both grandpa and I have been away for a while.” 

It’s a strangely sweet ending for a ghost story. He isn’t sure if that’s the vibe Ryan was going for but Shane likes it - it feels less fake, as if Mia isn’t trying to sell it, but is really just telling the truth. He doesn’t believe it - but it’s nice. 

**Author's Note:**

> abandoned work. it's yours if you want it. I recommend googling hotel monte vista and reading about its horror stories. have fun!


End file.
